Law Review Article Cites The Tech Contracts Handbook
A South Carolina Law Review article cites The Tech Contracts Handbook — and in fact relies upon it heavily. The article is THE UNDERCOVER DETECTIVE LOOKS AT DATA BREACH CONTRACT CLAUSES: WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE UNDER THE CONTRACT FOR COSTS OF COVER? (67 S.C. L. Rev. 535, Spring 2016). The author is Professor Jill Bronfman of […]
When Law Firms Buy Cloud Services
by David W. Tollen and Nathan Leong You’re a lawyer looking for online software and other tools to run your firm—tools like email, word processing, calendaring, timenotes, legal research, and particularly document management. You stumble across a great suite of tools from a reputable company and sign up. You love your new powers; now you’re […]
Is Technology a Threat to Attorney-Client Privilege?
By Phil Brown and David W. Tollen Lawyers love tradition, but many clients want to communicate with 21st Century tools. Texting, Skyping, SnapChatting: all of these would mystified most lawyers ten years ago. But habits change. The flood of technological “advances” in communication methods brings new threats to attorney-client privilege and confidentiality. The truth is, […]
New Form: Customer’s ITMA (Information Technology Master Agreement)
We’ve posted a new contract in the forms library — and it’s available in MS Word (no charge, as always). It’s meant to serve as a customer’s primary contract for purchasing any and all IT (other than hardware or IaaS): namely, licensed software, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and/or IT professional services. You can use it to acquire […]
5 Simple Rules for Negotiating Software and IT Contracts
Capterra’s IT Management Blog just published an article by David Tollen: 5 Simple Rules for Negotiating Software and IT Contracts. It’s a customer-focused articles, addressing five mistakes customers tend to make in their tech contracts. (Sorry vendors! Capterra’s blog mainly serves customers.) Please check it out …
Safe Harbor v. 2.0: “EU-US Privacy Shield”
[Things don’t stand still in the world of data privacy. Check out our short updates: Spring Cleaning: Fix Contract Terms for Data Transfers From The UK; The Clock is Ticking: Are Your Contract Terms Out-of-Date for Transfers of Personal Data Subject to the GDPR?; Third Time Lucky? Personal Data Transfers between the U.S., EU, UK; Draft EU […]
The Big Data Licensing Issue-Spotter
Managing and sharing big data creates technical challenges unlike anything found in traditional data-sharing relationships. But big data contracts don’t involve a whole new field of legal knowledge. If you’ve already worked on cloud computing agreements or traditional data licenses, you have most of the tools needed for big data licensing. (Actually, cloud computing contracts […]
FAQ’s re EU Data Transfers, Now that Safe Harbor Is Gone
[Things don’t stand still in the world of data privacy. Check out our updates: https://www.techcontracts.com/2023/07/21/personal-data-transfers-schrems/, Spring Cleaning: Fix Contract Terms for Data Transfers From The UK; The Clock is Ticking: Are Your Contract Terms Out-of-Date for Transfers of Personal Data Subject to the GDPR?; Third Time Lucky? Personal Data Transfers between the U.S., EU, UK; Draft EU “Adequacy Decision” […]
Don’t Use License Agreements for Software as a Service
Most IT contract drafters know the difference between a software license agreement and a technology services contract. In a license, the customer gets rights to copy and use software, while in a services contract, the customer gets a service, like tech support or IT consulting. But software as a service (SaaS) seems to throw a […]
Don’t Use Nondisclosure Terms for Private or Electronic Data — Use Data Security Terms
When one party has to protect information belonging to the other, we tend to pull out a nondisclosure agreement: an NDA. Or if we don’t want a separate NDA, we add the NDA’s key provisions to our tech contract as a confidentiality or nondisclosure clause. That makes sense if we’re trying to protect trade secrets […]